Backing off from technical diving

[AfterDark]

I just finished purchasing most of my gear in hopes of doing cave training,adv nitrox/deco procedures,etc. I was diagnosed with avascular necrosis in 4 joints, my knees and ankles. I'm not sure right now what life, much less diving will bring me. I truly hope that I will be able to continue on my path to cave and lighter technical diving but honestly,I don't even know if it will be safe to keep diving.
Right now, I face some complex surgeries and will most likely need knee replacements in the near future, unless the stem cell/core decompressions take. I'm hoping that a 12 week course of lovenox will settle everything down and stop things in its tracks as it has for some people.
this was all caused by a round of steroid injections for neck pain and then a big dose of steroids given when I had an airway compromise in 2007, or at least that's what it seems to be caused by. Doesn't appear to be diving related.
I was also found to have a coagulation disorder, anticardiolipin antibody, which is why I'm supposed to take the lovenox injections.
But, it certainly has put the technical dive training on hold for awhile! I keep wondering if I should sell the fancy can light and other gear, especially the wing/backplates. Since, I will most likely learn sidemount when I start up again.
But, again, if I just do recreational diving, a simple BP/wing will come in handy, and I should be able to handle a single tank on my back, if I get knee replacements, assuming my ankles don't get too bad.

Keep the light you can't have too many lights and a good canister light is hard to beat. Most of the guys I dive with take canister lights on days dives because past 80' it's dark. Nothing wrong with having more gear than you need.

 

[tracydr]

I'm farm animal stupid at 100 feet on anything that doesn't have helium in it. I just recognize the fact, and deal with it by opening my pocketbook.

See,this is why I want to get the training. That, and I really want to do caves,and my husband wants to do the Truk dives.
Plus,my husband has a bit of a deeper diving addiction. I need the helium to make wise decisions.

 

[Centrals]

See,this is why I want to get the training. That, and I really want to do caves,and my husband wants to do the Truk dives.
Plus,my husband has a bit of a deeper diving addiction. I need the helium to make wise decisions.

Good luck to your treatment.
Helium is very expensive in Truk.

 

[flots am]

I keep experimenting this distaste for the artificial line in the sand that is used to create the terms technical and recreational. While I wholeheartedly agree with what Quero is saying, I think it should be universally applicable. ie All dives are decompression dives, all dives should have proper gas planning, all dives should be executed with a healthy ascent behavior.

It's really not a complicated distinction.

On a recreational dive, you can surface more or less safely at any point in the dive. On a technical dive you can't.

The line "all dives are decompression dives", which appears here quite regularly, is really doing a disservice to recreational divers, since it implies a level of risk that simply doesn't exist.

As for the rest of it, certainly "not running out of air" and doing a safe ascent are important. I'm not sure you'll find anybody who disagrees with that. The difference is that running out of air and/or surfacing too quickly on a 45 minute dive to 30' is only embarrassing. On a 200' 45 minute dive, it's probably fatal.

Different dives have a continuum of different risk levels and you prepare accordingly. But proper preparation should always be a universal requirement. When I came out of my OW certification I was disappointed at the amount of crucial information that was absent in the course.

The truly crucial information is not missing from the OW class, although a lot of pool time often is. If you actually learned and followed everything in any OW book from any of the major certification agencies (including PADI) you would know what you need to dive safely in conditions that new OW divers are thinking of when they sign up for class. This generally means someplace warm and happy and not too challenging.

He also taught me how to use ndl tables AND decompression tables in spite of us never doing any mandatory deco dives. At least you knew what was coming if you ever broke ndl limits. OW by contrast only said do 3 mins at 15ft if you behaved, 5 mins if you misbehaved a little bit, and 8 if you misbehaved a little more. What if I misbehaved a lot? Should I just stay at 15 and patiently wait for death...?

If you exceed the no-deco limit by a significant amount, the tables actually recommend staying at your stop for 20 minutes or "longer if your air supply allows". This is, however less of an issue than you might expect, since nearly all new divers are using 77 CuFt tanks, and with a average new-diver RMV, it's actually quite difficult to exceed the no-deco limit on a single tank.

---------- Post added August 18th, 2013 at 09:15 PM ----------

Right now there's a thread running by a dive shop manager about the many divers who show up at his place with a dozen dives saying that they are pretty experienced and demanding to book dives for which they are not prepared.

I did that @ John Pennekamp when I was new. I wanted to do the Speigel Grove and the manager said something very similar to "You're not ready for it. It's not safe for you and you'll have a bad time, I think you'll be a lot happier at Molasses reef" and he was right.

I wish more of them would just "do what's right"

flots.

 

[Quero]

I like to live under the belief that knowledge is better than ignorance. Of course people can do bad things with knowledge they acquire. It is still no excuse to promote ignorance.

Oh, come on! Nobody is "promoting ignorance." We're not talking about anything like refusing to let Afghan girls go to school, for cripes sake! People who want this information can find a mentor to show them or can take a course, or can get the information some other way. It's simply overkill for the Open Water Diver student, and I for one prefer to train people to stay within their no-stop limits at this point in their diver development.

Since you were so terribly disappointed in your Open Water course, I suppose you would have preferred one of those courses that takes half a year to complete and doesn't issue a certification until you have a dozen dives and 100 hours of training.

Well, it is enough of an issue for a couple of agencies to rename NDL to minimum deco and try to teach a more comprehensive ascent behavior to new divers. I'm no GUE/UTD/DIR fanboy, but I do see the advantages on the way they teach it.

Words are just words. Whether you call it NDL or minimum deco or Lucy doesn't change anything.

I also like the way Steve Lewis presents his ascent behavior in his book. The way I interpreted it, he made it very relevant for dives with or without Lucy.

That is a different topic. Following Steve's guidance does not require use of deco schedules.

I have absolutely no problem teaching the most basic divers how to use the Navy decompression tables. I will teach my daughter that soon. It is extremely useful for them to understand the concept.

Presumably you will be her mentor and inculcate good dive planning and execution habits. Most new divers will not have their instructor with them for every dive for months/years on end. Learning how to read a deco table does not equate to learning how to plan and execute a deco dive. However, some people without mentors to hold them back may in fact think this is the case. The mindset of semi-trained people--those with only a smattering of knowledge but no in-depth (pardon the pun) training--is the bigger issue, IMHO.

 

[ano123]

Hi,Tony,i do admire your spirit.

I am getting old but I'll continue to tech dive until the body just can't do it.

 

[DaleC]

I wonder how many divers consider they are doing rec dives when in waterways that have heavy boat traffic.

I remember doing a dive that had a long horizontal distance in only 30' of water. Recreational for sure; except for the boats that were passing back and forth. I assumed a ceiling but I bet many would do that dive with single Al80's and no redundancy of any sort.

I have also done dives where it was pretty important to get back to the entry point or risk surfacing in current and being swept into the Georgia Strait. Recreational depths but requiring the ability not to surface directly.

I see some of this discussion being the result of our modern consumer mentality in which a diver expects to be able to purchase advanced technical training when they want. It's a good thing overall, I guess, but it does create a lot of overly trained and equipped divers who end up not really liking the circumstances they've rushed into. Maybe it's a Scottish thing but I am amazed at the way some people just drop $5000+ on a hobby they have very little real experience doing.

It also probably has a part to do with the gap that exists in our current diving culture. Fresh out of OW/AOW the industry really only promotes three pathways (with some exceptions):
Turning Pro
Destination diving
Technical training

What is missing is an emphasis on local recreational diving. If more time was spent developing and promoting this as a valid and worthwhile pursuit, more divers might spend more time there developing basic skills, and perhaps, learning what they really enjoy in regards to diving.
One only needs to look at many threads on this board to read the derogatory manner in which local diving is referred to. Certainly it's not real diving. No wonder so many new divers bypass this phase for more uber pursuits and then back off once they realize it is dark, cold, expensive and mostly boring.

For a few, it becomes a passion.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I certainly don't think I rushed into technical training . . . nor did I ever NOT do the cold, dark, murky local diving that I'm STILL doing!

I do believe that there is no bright line between no-stop and tech diving. I like the GUE/UTD approach of teaching ALL divers to do staged decompression from the beginning; that way, the transition to doing longer and more mandatory staged decompression is a natural one, when the time comes.

 

[Quero]

Dale C, your post makes some very good points. The simple explanation is that the line delimiting recreational and technical diving lies in terms of the overhead--the ability to surface immediately--whether that overhead is steel, rock, or a deco obligation. Your examples show us that while it might be physically possible to surface directly from a dive in the event of an emergency (no steel, rock or deco to hold you back), it may not be advisable, and therefore the dive planning may be more in line of what would be required of a virtual overhead. I am not bothered by the terminology that one or another agency uses, but I am bothered by a paucity of information and practice in gas management, even when that gas is plain old air. I think we need to do more with our Open Water students for exactly the sorts of dives you describe--shallow enough to be within recreational depths, but you can't just pop up any old place. You need to have enough gas to get yourself back to where it's safe to surface. Great post!

 

[turnerjd]

I remember reading about this in the Verna Van Schaik's book. It was such a different, yet efficient system for divers to progress through the ranks.

Which book was this? Fatally flawed?

I haven't read the book personally, is it any good? is it just about the record 221m dive or is it more general?

Jon